Startling discovery: It *is* hard to make new friends as an adult.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Fine, everybody else, you were right. I’ve heard people say this often, but people say a lot of things. People say “supposebly.” I’ve always just hand-waved the idea away as people being too shy or something, because I moved to a new town as a grown up and met friends pretty quickly, and everybody knows my one experience is a fair representation of how things typically work.

The truth is, it seems to be, it’s a lot easier when you work with a lot of people. Even a grumpy old bat like me can find people to get along with when you have 400 co-workers, and then it just kind of snowballs. You go out with them, meet other people, make bar buds, and next thing you, voila! My new gig has like 10 people here, my favorite of which is a white-haired old man with kids my age, who is very, very, sweet, but I doubt he’s going to want to see “The Blackout Diaries” with me tonight. My best friend in town is a girl on the South side whose entire life revolves around her boyfriend, and I’ve never been super close to. We do happy hours, but, you know, having one friend to have drinks with every other week is kind of lame. The other person who I think might be my friend is the flakiest person I’ve ever met, and I’m honestly starting to think he doesn’t even like me that much. I think he only offered to hang around me when I first got here to do me a favor. “Okay, I’m done humoring you, now you go find your own straight friends now.”

Another startling discovery: I don’t like being by myself as much as I thought I did. I mean, Me Time is some serious shit that I love, but this whole solo act thing is a lot more fun when it’s voluntary.

I joined some MeetUp groups, so I’ll see how those go. The only ones that seem half-way interesting to me, though, only meet like once a month or something.

Feh. So how whiny, on a scale of 1-10, is this? I’m giving it a solid 9.5.

2

Eh, friends are overrated.

3

Quiet! Or I’ll karate-chop your face.

4

Hmm, should we call you FriendlyOldLady from now on?

5

I’ve been burning through friends pretty quickly lately, and I"m only 28. I guess as I grow older (and probably wiser than I should be for my age) my standards go up respecting the types of influences I want around me. I just can’t seem to rationalize hanging around stoners anymore, or people who aren’t kind to their children, or perpetual live-at-homes.

So, yeah. It’s darn hard to find friends when you get older…because people do change. If you have a lifelong friend, cherish them and hang on to them. A rare thing indeed.

6

I thought you were married, no? I just co-opt my husband’s friends, so much easier than making my own.
Didn’t you recommend us our wedding venue 4 years ago?

7

Ya know, I actually am pretty friendly (but mean too ;)). I was griping on the phone to my friend about this, who is like my best friend anywhere, and she immediately started with the “This’ll be a piece of cake. Young, friendly, etc” bit. Well it’s not a cake. It’s more like a shit sandwich. And with white bread. And American cheese singles.

Okay, I just re-read my OP and thought, “Yeesh, quit your bitching.” So that I shall do. I think after getting flaked on (again) I just needed to scream into the internet.

8

You know the most pathetic thing ever? If I got married tomorrow I wouldn’t have any damned wedding attendants unless I asked family I’m not close to or friends I haven’t seen in years. I’d have to recruit my mom’s friends or something.

9

On the internet, no one can hear you scream.

Or stream.

10

The only friend I’m interested in maintaining ties to is my wife. As I get older I find myself becoming more and more like Red Foreman and Larry David.

Friends were great in my youth-- they helped pass the time. I still maintain a connection to people I was friends with in my younger years-- through Facebook-- but I really have zero desire to socialize with them anymore. My wife, my family…these are the people I like socializing with.

11

I’m lucky I still have my old high school friends and we all get together once in a while. Friendship is taking for granted when you’re a kid, you always expect to just meet someone else wherever you go. As an adult, it becomes that much harder because you are less trusting, having gone through the crucible fo the “Real World” and being hurt

Friendship in childhood is also deeper, I think, because you are all growing up and growing into the world and your bodies at the same time. You relate to each other’s problems and hopes and fears. As an adult, you meet people who are already formed, who have already decided who and what they are going to be, and you have the option of either agreeing with it and being friends, or not. As children, you don’t have to make that choice

Its also been said that its harder to make friends as a man than a woman. Never having been a woman, I can’t tell you what the other side is like, but the stereotype seems true that women have friends to share feelings and thoughts with, while men have friends to share activities. I have tennis friends, drinking friends, lunch friends, but we hardly ever talk about our feelings, hopes, fears, and desires aside from bitching about work

Anyways that enough out of me

12

That being said, my wife is interested in making new friends, but she is also discovering how hard it is to make them as an adult. Apparently, unlike me, her spouse isn’t the only friend she needs.

In college, she said it was easier because no one’s married, the prospect of getting laid often drives one’s social calendar, everyone basically has the same committments and free time, your sort of in a dorm-shaped pressure cooker, like-minded people gravitate to similar activites and organizations, etc. Once your an adult, much of that changes.

13

Yes as you get older it is harder to make friends. People get set in their ways and don’t want to increase their circle of friends. Or if you do find someone, often their interests lie in their family, which is fine, if you have a similarly aged family.

My daughter and son and long gone and grown, so I have little in common with a mother of toddlers. I like to go out with them once in a while, but I couldn’t do a close relationship with most of the mothers of little kids. We’re just too different.

And it gets more depression as you circle of friends starts decreasing because of death.

14

And the older you get, the harder it becomes to make new friends. I’m 85, my DH is 91. We do have each other, but how long will that last? However we are blessed to have a church family, which provides us will great support and friendship.

I guess I am happy. I’m certainly not unhappy.

15

The solution to this is don’t get married.

This is exactly it. I was just expecting that to be the case because that’s how it’s always been. Every time you start a new school or a new job, you meet new people and you make more friends.

And these friends I’ve made through the years haven’t gone away. Some of them sure, but others are people I grew close to, and so I talk to them all the time. But they’re not physically here. I don’t ordinarily mind having people I’m close to live elsewhere, as I value true friendships with people more than having activity partners, but in another city in another time, there was a fair amount of overlap between the people I felt close to and the people I did stuff with. Now they are separate categories entirely, as one of them is essentially empty.

I just moved to this place two months ago, so I’m spanking new and don’t expect this to be the case forever, but right now it’s kind of annoying.

Ah well.

16

Are you possibly in the south? I’ll take you out for a beer!

17

Yup yup, my family keeps telling me to go join a group or something, but I want my friends. My friends that live hours away. :frowning:

Reddit had a global meetup day last month. I went to the local meetup, found out that everyone knew at least one other person, so I ate some nachos, drank some beer and left. If I have to listen to other people’s boozy university stories, I’d rather listen to the ones for the friends I already have.

18

That’s the truth. I’m just getting back in touch with somebody that I’ve known for 22 years. We used to work graveyard shift together, and you develop a special camaraderie doing that.

She and I where best buds and it’s sad that we drifted apart after we both married. Well, I guess her husband (ex now) was a bit of a controlling SOB.

We are going to an all day music fest tomorrow up here in the mountains and spending the night in a yurt. We are both completely psyched.

<stealth brag>I am also lucky to have an understanding and trusting Wife.<sb>

19

I would smug at you, MOL, but that wouldn’t magically make me new friends. :frowning:

If you’re used to getting friends through work, a small company definitely makes it tough. There’s only one or two guys at my office that I’m really on friendly terms with, but they’ve got their own lives. And at least for me, work is work and personal is personal, and rarely the twain shall meet.

Still, I’m getting with two Meetup groups at the end of the month, so there’s that to look forward to.

20

Try making new friends when you’ve lived a nomadic existence for most of your life. It’s nearly impossible. Portland is a very friendly place, but everybody who has been here most of their lives have established relationships and are really not interested in taking on another one. My wife has made inroads because she volunteers at the museum with a lot of women her age, but the only possibility I’ve had was a guy who is now moving away. Over the years I’ve built a pretty hefty shield about this, and really am fine by myself, as long as my wife never leaves me. Trying to make new friends is exhausting and I’ve pretty much given up on it.